Baserunning blunders serve as another area for improvement

CLEVELAND – Sophomoric. Quite simply, some of the Astros’ recent mental baserunning blunders have been disgusting.

That’s not a fan’s opinion or even a reporter’s observation. That assessment was straight from an Astros coach Friday, so it is an even more valid critique.

Kids will make mistakes. You have to believe the youngest team in the majors will get better next season. Some of them, after all, are essentially developing in the majors at a point in their careers when they might be at Class AAA with other franchises.

Actually, the team’s overall baserunning isn’t bad, contrary to what Jose Altuve, Jonathan Villar and Jake Elmore displayed this week. In terms of advancing runners on groundouts, fly balls and hits to the outfield, Bo Porter’s club is in the middle of the pack or above average.

Little success on steals

Yet, there’s no denying the Astros fall short when it comes to stolen bases and pickoffs.

“We’re pretty far below average at creating runs on stolen bases and pickoff metrics,” general manager Jeff Luhnow said. “As a whole, we look at it fairly regularly. As a whole our team is average, advancing first to third, scoring on sacrifices and all of that.

“But we are below average on caught stealing and pickoffs. That’s something that we need to improve for sure, especially when many of those are mental errors.

“It’s one thing when the guys aren’t fast enough to beat the throw.”

Heading into the second game of a four-game series against the Indians on Friday, the Astros had been caught attempting to steal a major league-worst 58 times.

The Brewers, the second-worst team in that category, have been caught nine fewer times.

The Astros are 26th out of 30 teams with a 65.1 stolen-base percentage. They were also picked off a major league-worst 13 times.

Except for the White Sox (10), no other team in the majors had been picked off more than eight times this year.

You don’t need to be fast to be a good or even great baserunner. Jeff Bagwell was a brilliant baserunner, and nobody compared his speed to Rickey Henderson.

Awareness is important. Instincts are crucial, and a little common sense is helpful.

“You have to know the value of 27 outs and not give outs away carelessly on the bases because later on in the game it does not allow you the opportunity to have the lineup roll over and have your better hitters hitting late in the game when usually the game is decided,” third-base coach Dave Trembley said. “It’s not always the best team that wins night in and night out.

“The team that wins night in and night out is the team that makes the fewest mistakes both offensively and defensively within the framework of the nine innings in those 27 outs.”

A flurry of flubs

It has been quite a frustrating week for the Astros on the bases with costly mental mistakes by players who should know better. On Wednesday, Altuve ran into an out at third base even though Brandon Barnes, the potential winning run, was at third in the 11th inning of a game they lost to the Reds in 13 innings.

A day later with the score tied at 1 and nobody in the 10th, Elmore was sent to second base to run for Cody Clark.

He was thrown out at second base before Villar could even drop down a bunt.

After the Astros lost 2-1 in 11 innings, Porter’s anger was evident, and Elmore owned up to the price of his miscue.

“I feel like we’ve made some mistakes that are easily avoidable that could possibly cost us the game,” Elmore said. “It’s tough to swallow.”

Some of the mental mistakes can be attributed to having players learning at the major league level.

Some are completely inexcusable. As Porter pointed out, Altuve’s blunder shouldn’t be made beyond Little League.

Back to basics

Luhnow and Porter plan to address the baserunning next spring training with additional drills.

“Some of the aspects that have happened throughout the course of this year will be addressed from a standpoint of there are different drills which we will do that we did not do last spring that will place some emphasis on some baserunning issues that will help us be a better baserunning team,” Porter said. “Am I satisfied with our baserunning?

“No, absolutely not. But as we move forward and move into next year, I’m going to take over the baserunning myself and it will be better.”